


sharp corners

by iron_spider



Series: whumptober 2019 [9]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baby Morgan, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Gen, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 01:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21153146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: “Hey,” Peter’s voice says, as he comes around the corner. “What are youoh my God.”It’s like Tony’s heart is sucked directly into his throat and he whips his hand out from under the water, flinging droplets and blood fucking everywhere. And yet, he still hides his hand behind his back.Peter stares at him. Looks down at the ball, cut in half, the drops of blood surrounding it like some half-assed modern art, and then back at Tony, the guiltiest man in the world. Peter narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”Tony scoffs, shaking his head. “What did I—nothing. I didn’t do anything. That’s always been there.”





	sharp corners

**Author's Note:**

> this is for the whumptober prompt 'secret injury'!

Tony keeps watching as newly minted one year-old Morgan toddles around her own party, gazing up at all the adults that are here, chronicling her every move. Pepper invited a few Stark employees with children around the same age, and it’s like watching a herd of baby deer muddle around, with no real intentions of going anywhere in particular. They’re just walking because they can. 

But they have one very formidable foe in their paths. Sharp corners. Tony didn’t realize how many they had in this room, one of the living rooms with a kitchen and dining space—there are all kinds of coffee tables, side tables, weirdly shaped chairs. Danger at every turn. Or corner. 

Peter swoops in so Morgan doesn’t run into the table beside the couch again. They’ve already got one crying baby being comforted on the couch, and every other second there’s another close call. Everybody’s on high alert. No baby is safe. 

It’s getting under Tony’s skin.

It’s becoming an unspoken thing, like everybody is afraid to say Tony Stark throws a shitty birthday party for kids, but they’re all standing in front of the corners and pretending they’re not. Peter is the only one being genuine, as always. And Tony can see everything May is thinking on her face. 

Morgan stumbles into Peter’s arms, shrieking happily when he settles her in his lap. Since she started walking she usually doesn’t wanna stop for anybody, not even him or Pepper, but she’s had a special soft spot for Peter from moment one. Which doesn’t surprise Tony in the slightest. 

He kneels down next to the two of them just as Peter is blowing raspberries into Morgan’s chubby little cheek. 

“Can you hold court for a minute or two here?” Tony whispers, so Pepper can’t hear. 

“Uh, yeah,” Peter says, giving Tony a look. “What are you gonna go do? Because more Barbies could really, like, liven this thing up. You don’t have the submarine Barbie down here and that’s her favorite one.”

“I’m not gonna go get more toys,” Tony scoffs, shaking his head at him. “I’m gonna go deal with our little situation here.”

“Situation?” Peter asks. Morgan is grabbing at the collar on his shirt, holding onto one of his fingers.

Tony taps the corner directly behind Peter’s head. 

Peter narrows his eyes. “What are you gonna do? File them down?”

Tony glares at him. “Just trust me, please. Stay your interesting and endearing self and entertain the masses.” He taps Peter’s nose, ruffles Morgan’s untamed curls.

“Uh, okay,” Peter says, and Tony glances back to see him watching him worriedly, craning his neck.

Tony finds the tennis balls in a broom closet. He bought a lot of random shit when Morgan was born, a lot of shit they didn’t need, or didn’t need at least for another couple of years. He remembers Pepper’s face when he and Peter came back with the ten pack of tennis balls, among other unnecessary things. _Tennis balls? Is someone making a career change? Are we getting a dog?_ Then Peter talked about a dog for twenty minutes, and appropriately distracted her from the roller skates and VR headset in the basket.

Tony gets overzealous, he knows this, everybody knows this. He’ll probably never even use any of the shit he bought in his baby-induced stupor, because he can usually get something better or invent it himself. But he’s glad he got the tennis balls.

He sneaks out of the closet, sliding along the wall like he’s on a covert mission, and that other baby is still crying. Jesus, he knew a one year old’s birthday party might be a miss, but these guys are gonna go away thinking Tony can’t babyproof his place. He marches deep into the kitchen, and thankfully, nobody’s gonna be in here for another half hour or so because that’s when the lunch is gonna arrive. He briefly wonders if everybody is judging their appetizers too, and shakes his head, getting back to the task at hand.

Pepper babyproofed the set of knives, of all things, like Morgan was gonna climb up on this counter three times her height and choose a knife as her new toy. Tony unlocks Fort Knox, and takes out the sharpest one, glancing down at his feet to make sure one of the babies isn’t down there searching for something sharp. He’s alone, thankfully, and he pops open the tennis ball container like a can of cat food, and pulls the first one out. He puts it down on the counter, holds it with two fingers as he lines up the knife, and as soon as steel touches down on nylon, the ball pops away from his grasp and bounces across the kitchen.

“Jesus Christ,” Tony mutters, knowing if Morgan hears that she’ll come zooming in here like an out of control mini-bus, and Peter definitely will, considering the enhanced hearing. He puts the knife down—scoots it closer to the wall just in case—and walks over to the offending tennis ball.

“I am Iron Man,” he mutters, snatching the tennis ball off the ground, popping it from hand to hand. “I can, and will, conquer this foe. No more baby heads bumping into hard corners, oh no, not today.”

He puts the ball back down on the counter again and tries to saw through it.

“This shouldn’t be this fucking hard,” he groans, gritting his teeth. 

The ball threatens to jump out and roll away again, and Tony’s getting a little too recklessly angry, the small voice in the back of his mind telling him to settle down.

But that kid is still crying in the other room.

Tony holds the ball in his hand and cuts away at it with his other hand, and it absolutely shouldn’t be this goddamn hard, and he reminds himself to pull his hand away when he gets all the way through the ball—

But it falls apart like a newly cut apple a lot quicker than Tony expected, and he slices right through his palm like it’s what he’d been aiming for all along.

“Shit,” he hisses, white hot pain shooting through him, the blood bright and horrifying red, not something he’d ever wanna see in the middle of his daughter’s first birthday party.

“Oh, goddamnit,” Tony says, grimacing. He glares down at both halves of the ball, and moves over to the sink, quickly running the water over his injured hand.

He knows immediately that this isn’t the kind of wound he can just wash off and walk away from, and he’s seen a lot of shit in his life. He knows he needs to take care of it, and that means Pepper will notice his absence. Then Pepper will find out the dumbass thing he did, and Pepper will be pissed. Nobody ever wants Pepper to be pissed.

Tony watches the blood flood down the drain and chews on his lower lip.

“Hey,” Peter’s voice says, as he comes around the corner. “What are you _oh my God._”

It’s like Tony’s heart is sucked directly into his throat and he whips his hand out from under the water, flinging droplets and blood fucking everywhere. And yet, he still hides his hand behind his back. 

Peter stares at him. Looks down at the ball, cut in half, the drops of blood surrounding it like some half-assed modern art, and then back at Tony, the guiltiest man in the world. Peter narrows his eyes. “What did you do?”

Tony scoffs, shaking his head. “What did I—nothing. I didn’t do anything. That’s always been there.”

Peter stares down at the tennis ball. He looks up at the bloody knife on the counter. _Jesus Christ._ “You tried to cut the tennis ball in half to put on the table corners and you cut yourself.”

Tony sighs, holding out his hand. It stings and the cut is still dripping. “Yeah, Pep is gonna be pissed if she finds out I did some dumb shit today of all days. Usually I get a pass—she gets irritated, yeah, but today is not a pass giving day.”

Peter sucks in a breath and nods, moving into a mode that Tony has seen him in on more than one occasion. He opens up the second cabinet, takes out a glove—no, three gloves—and puts one on, depositing the other two on the counter. He grabs both pieces of the ball and tosses them in the trash, giving Tony a withering look. Then he grabs the Windex and starts cleaning up the blood.

“Tony, like, do something, stop just standing there—”

“Right, right,” Tony says, even though his brain is drawing complete blanks, because they’re still too close to the party itself and he’s fucking something else up for Pepper, as fucking usual, because that’s who he is and who he always will be.

“Keep running your hand under the water,” Peter says, a little softer now. 

Tony nods, rushes back over, and sticks his hand under the still-running water. Peter cleans the blood up best as he can, ignores the water that was sprayed with Tony’s sad attempt to hide his hand. 

“Okay,” Peter says, throwing away the paper towels and the glove he was using. “Okay, okay, we’re gonna make a little compress, then we’re gonna put the gloves on your hands—”

“Explanation for that?” Tony asks. 

Peter shrugs. “I mean. You’re the one that can think on your feet. Remember the time I threw the bag of money out of the window?”

Tony narrows his eyes. “How could I possibly forget?”

Peter shrugs again, more dramatically. 

Tony blows out a breath. “Okay, I’ll—I’ll think of something.” He’ll think of something stupid, that’s for sure, but Pepper is pretty used to that, so he might be able to pull it off.

“Okay, I’m gonna go to the upstairs bathroom and grab the bactine—” He stares at Tony’s hand anxiously, and looks up at him. “I think we might need stitches.”

“We?” Tony asks. “Can you feel it too?”

Peter narrows his eyes at him. 

“No time,” Tony says, waving around his free hand. He turns off the water, gesturing dramatically for a paper towel. Peter hands it to him with a big sigh. “You go get the bactine and the better bandages, I’ll do the compress for the time being—”

Peter keeps looking anxiously at his hand. “Okay, okay, but Tony—”

“Stitches tonight, promise, cross my heart, I’ll let her be pissed at me later, not now.”

“Okay, okay, back in a flash.” Tony watches as he speeds through the hallway, and once he’s out of the danger zone he immediately crawls up to the ceiling and disappears towards the loft. Tony quickly makes a thin strip with a couple paper towels, and presses it on top of the cut. The blood still seeps through, and Tony rolls his eyes. Why in the hell did something like this have to happen _today?_ He should be able to cut a tennis ball in half. It should have been too easy. He should have been able to cut them all in half.

“Tony?” Pepper calls.

His heart shrivels up in a panic. “Yeah, hun, I’m, uh, getting some more of the little—the little vegetables, and the, uh, the peas Mo likes! Yeah!” He doesn’t know why he added the last _yeah_ in there, like a moron, and he definitely didn’t say any of it like a normal human being. 

“Bring the carrots she likes too!” Pepper calls back, and Tony wilts in relief.

“Yeah, gimme—couple minutes, I got this, I got this.” He shakes his head at himself, how he made bringing in vegetables sound like some immense task. He holds the paper towels to the cut, his fingers soaking with blood, and he thinks his body is being fucking overdramatic right now, he’s been cut worse without this much blood, it’s just _gotta_ be bleeding like this—

“_TONY._”

Peter’s voice, hushed but loud enough for Tony to hear. He turns around, inches from the fridge, and sees the kid standing there at the top of the stairs. In a flash, alright, but how, with the amount of shit he’s holding, Tony doesn’t know. Peter has bandages, bactine, Neosporin, rubbing alcohol, gauze, three of Morgan’s Barbies, including the newly purchased Black Widow one, and...the Hulk Smash hands. 

Tony sees where this is going. Peter grins happily when Tony shakes his head at him, and he starts down the stairs when Morgan herself waddles into the hallway.

Both of them freeze. 

She stands there, keeping an unsteady hold on her stance, and she looks back and forth between the two of them, letting out a small, nearly silent squeal. They don’t have the baby guard over the stairs today, which is another negligence, but Peter shifts all of his loot into one arm, and rushes down, scooping Morgan up with the other. She grins, babbles something quietly to Peter as he moves fast into the kitchen.

“What are you doing, little monkey?” Tony asks, bending down to look at her. She paws at his nose.

“Tony, you got her?” Pepper yells. “She got away from Diane—”

“Got her, got her, no help needed here, we’re good!” Tony yells back.

“You keep sounding like someone is holding a gun to your head,” Peter says, putting all his supplies down on the counter. Morgan notices the Barbies, and looks at Peter in delight.

“Yeah, I’m—I don’t hold up well under Pepper pressure,” Tony says, tossing away the blood-soaked paper towel and starting the work with the real first aid.

“You got this?” Peter asks, swinging Morgan back and forth, making her laugh.

“Yeah, kids,” Tony says. “Enjoy yourselves. Dad’s just bleeding.” He pushes everything down towards the sink, like on a conveyor belt, and the Surf Instructor Barbie tries to come along for the ride. “I assume I’m wearing the Hulk hands.”

“Yeah, I thought that would be good, better than stupid cleaning gloves,” Peter says, holding Morgan against his hip. “You know like, none of her toys are age appropriate.”

“I know,” Tony says, wincing at the Neosporin. “I go a little crazy with shopping for kid shit. I’ve got you to supervise.”

“And no one’s taking Barbies away from little princess,” Peter says, kissing Morgan’s cheek. She loves that, and she laughs joyfully. Tony’s still got a gaping wound, but he peers over his shoulder to admire them, anyway.

~

Peter cuts up the tennis balls and puts them on all the corners. Tony entertains as the Hulk for almost half an hour, and only slips up about his injury once, which he turns into a dilapidated roar. Everyone has fun, Morgan receives some toys that are more age appropriate, they eat, no more babies run into hard corners.

Peter and May are showing Morgan her new dog guitar when Pepper peels the Hulk hand off Tony’s injured one. She raises her eyebrows at the wrapping which, thankfully, isn’t covered in blood.

The dog guitar plays one long, mangled note, and Morgan claps.

“I knew you’d done something to yourself,” Pepper says, raising her eyebrow at him. “I didn’t know what, but I knew you’d done something.”

Tony grins, and absolutely does not look at Peter.

“And this one helped,” May says, touching Peter’s knee with her foot.

“How do you know?” Peter asks, accusingly. 

“I just know,” May says, giving them both the same look.

“Yeah, they work as a team,” Pepper says.

Tony clears his throat. Well, it’s true. “I’m totally fine,” he says. “Just. Dandy. Just a scratch.”

“You need stitches, don’t you?” Pepper asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah, I think I’ll probably lose the whole hand if I don’t get them within the next half hour.” He shrugs with his remaining Hulk fist. “Thor got these for her, right? Or was it us? I know it wasn’t Bruce.”

“Yeah, it was Thor,” Pepper says. She leans in, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re a moron and I love you.”

“I love you too,” Tony says, a little wary of her tone. “You’re gonna make Peter contact Helen, aren’t you?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Pepper says, looking down at Peter. 

“Got it,” Peter says, pressing a long kiss to Morgan’s forehead as she grasps at his chin. “Totally fair. Totally.”

Peter and Tony walk towards the main door, shoulder to shoulder. 

“I think we got off easy,” Tony says. 

“Yeah, I was thinking she’d make me stitch it up myself,” Peter says. “Then we’d both be in trouble.”

“I love you and I trust you, but yeah, no,” Tony says, patting him on the shoulder with the Hulk fist. He hopes the whole process goes quick. The five of them have a date with _Barbie in Swan Lake_ tonight to cap off Morgan’s birthday. Hand or no hand.


End file.
